Easily much better than the previous “greatest movie about baseball in Japan,” 1992’s Mr. Baseball starring Tom Selleck, Battlefield Baseball succeeds because of the relative dearth of baseball-related antics (as well as the dearth of Tom Selleck) and instead uses the trappings of baseball merely as a way to get across its message that everyone wants to feel loved – even a high school baseball team of homicidal mutants.

The trappings of baseball are used in scenes where characters end up impaled by baseball bats, injected with poison with specially designed bats, and use the biggest catcher’s mitt you’ve ever seen when trying to catch the main character’s Super Tornado Pitch. Other than the fact, that the Super Tornado Pitch never was used in a save situation, I have no reservations about recommending this movie to baseball fans everywhere who find real baseball boring and don’t mind a story that lacks any internal logic but compensates for it by having its shock ending turn out to be that the dog of an alcoholic fan was the guy narrating everything.

As every real baseball fan knows, the only reason for living is going to, competing in, and winning the Koshien Tournament. Though I am unsure what this is, if it really exists, or if I even spelled it right, the principal of good old Seido High is obsessed with having his baseball team win it all. He stands in front of the portraits of his forerunners he has hanging in his office and swears that they will be the champions.

I wish my own school principal had been this committed to high school athletics instead of being a sweaty fat slob who had a tendency to stammer whenever my dad threatened to sue him when I was periodically under threat of expulsion for some trumped up charge or other. Oh sure, we had a good wrestling team, but that was merely a monument to farm boys’ desire to grope one another rather a validation of our physical prowess as a community.

With such a dedication to sport though also comes a high emotional price if you even get a whiff of failure. So it is that the principal is quite devastated when Head Teacher arrives with the morning paper and the sports section announces that their opponent in the opening round of the tourney will be Gedo High! Those of you whose baseball knowledge is strictly of a provincial nature probably have never heard of Gedo and their baseball squad. Gedo’s team is made up of, um, well, they’re sort of non-traditional students.

Most of them have greenish grey skin and all of them carry some kind of deadly weapon. One guy runs around with a butterfly knife, hooks his Walkman up to his neck to speak, and has his head wrapped up in bloody mummy bandages. Long story short on this team is that they literally kill whatever team they face on the field. Gedo High is quite obviously a vocational high school.

The principal absorbs what this means and does what any fanatical coach would do when confronted with such a set back. He collapses onto the floor, curls up, and whimpers softly while Head Teacher looks on before finally becoming so uncomfortable that he leaves. The principal though isn’t the only one with problems. Four Eyes has been dispatched by Matsui Gorilla to go get a baseball he hit out of the park at the school. Four Eyes is a wimpy ball player who isn’t very good, but plays solely for the love of the game. (See how stupid baseball is?)

While attempting to retrieve the ball he runs into a hood who bullies him. All of this bullying interrupts the nap that this guy is taking and he wakes up pissed and proceeds to beat up the bully. He also beats up the bully’s gang. Finally, it’s time for this mystery man (he won’t be too mysterious to those of you who recognize him from Versus) to take on the gang’s leader, Bancho!

Bancho is an ugly, crabby, blonde haired kid who thinks his “Fighting Baseball” is as good as Jubeh The Baseball’s is. Jubeh is the name of our hero and he apparently practices a form of kung fu known as Fighting Baseball. What this means is that the fight consists of Bancho at bat, while Jubeh “pitches” himself at Bancho. Bancho swings at Jubeh and Jubeh avoids being hit by using the various techniques that make up his particular brand of kung fu.

Once Bancho strikes out, Jubeh thumps him and the fight ends with Bancho flying through the air and landing somewhere, presumably dead. The whole time this fight is happening, the principal and much of the school are watching. Instead of stopping the fight like most of these pansy educators probably would have done, the principal uses the incident to scout Jubeh’s skills. Needless to say, he’s impressed and desperately wants Jubeh on the team.

In the grand tradition of such grand sports movies as Hoosiers, the guy with the most talent refuses to play the game for personal reasons. I can’t recall exactly why Jimmy Chipwood wouldn’t play for coach Norman Dale in Hoosiers (I’m guessing it was that meddling Barbara Hershey’s fault), but Jubeh explains everything to Four Eyes during a quieter moment. In song. In a movie where you’re pretty much assuming that things will careen here and there for no particular reason, other than for either a cheap laugh or because it would make an exciting visual, I’ll admit I was surprised to see Jubeh The Baseball bare his soul by belting out a syrupy ballad about his messed up childhood.

It turns out Jubeh gave up baseball because he could throw a ball really, really fast and no one could catch it, but his dad used a giant catcher’s mitt to try and then Jubeh went and chucked it through the old man’s head, killing him. If Jubeh’s surviving family would have loved him, they would taken the guilt off of him and scored it a passed ball.

Jubeh changes his tune after a quick pep talk from Four Eyes and Bancho also returns from the dead with a new face to join the team. It turns out he was an angry cuss in the past because a shoulder injury prevented him from playing baseball, but the beating he got from Jubeh healed it right up. Bancho would die and return with new faces a few more times during the movie.

On the day of the big game, Jubeh is nowhere to found and Seido has to fight Gedo on their own resulting in most of the Seido team getting killed. For reasons I don’t think were ever explained, Jubeh missed the team bus because he was in prison. By the time he escapes and makes it to the stadium it’s littered with the body parts of his teammates. It’s probably around this part of the movie that Jubeh gets killed himself. This allows the movie to kind of do a Field Of Dreams father-son powwow deal in the hereafter where dad tells Jubeh that it’s not his time yet and to go back to Earth and remember how to throw his fastball.

So, even though everyone is pretty much dead, Jubeh comes back to life and goes to Gedo High’s home field (located on Invincible Hell Island) and challenges them to a fight to the finish. But he won’t have to do it alone! Both Gorilla and Head Teacher were brought back from the dead by turning them into cyborgs. Four Eyes is still okay though he ends up with that poison bat stuck up his ass. The principal is also there and a homely cheerleader volunteers. And I’m pretty sure that Bancho was resurrected again for this game.

The fight comes down to Jubeh and the strangely attired Gedo High coach (fringed western-style jacket, ugly cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and leather pants, not to mention his green Frankenstein Monster style face).

Good baseball always triumphs over evil baseball (except when the Yankees win the Series) and Jubeh is about ready to kill Coach in retaliation for the accidental use of the poison bat on Four Eyes (it was meant for Jubeh) when his mutant team members plead for his life, saying that before they met Coach, they were all in orphanages and that no one ever wanted to use them, but Coach used them and they appreciated it.

Jubeh realizes the wisdom in the words these weirdos speak and spares Coach, but the Gedo guy that looks like a mummy opens up and kills just about everyone with automatic weapons except Jubeh. Then Jubeh sheds a big tear and everyone comes back to life!

Bare descriptions of the action can’t begin to adequately communicate the sheer lunacy that runs riot in this movie. Nothing is taken very seriously and if you’re looking for high quality cinema with a point, you’ll need to look elsewhere. If you don’t mind overlooking some of the questionable effects, embrace many of the pointless touches and stuff that just never made any sense at all (the changing faces of Bancho, the fact that a team of freaks can’t get in trouble for killing people if it happens during a “game”, the alcoholic guy with the dog) and feel comfortable sitting through a film aimed at hyperactive kung fu manga fans who would never in a million years be able to sit through a single inning of real baseball, you’ll do alright. It easily contains enough action, drop dead stupid moments, and over-caffeinated camera work to keep you from hitting the exits early.

© 2008 MonsterHunter